Brew in a Bag Session 2

I did my second brew in a bag session today.  It was only four hours from the time I started heating my strike water till my my 65 degree F wort was transferred to a carboy and I finished cleaning up.  I did cut my boil time to 45 minutes.  If that doesn't lead to any dms  issues, I may just shorten up my normal boil time (I usually don't have a 60 minute hop addition anyway).

This batch may have given me an issue with efficiency (only 68%), but I may have messed up my measurement by drawing a sample from near the top of my kettle while I was chilling.  (I usually draw a sample at the end of my boil before everything gets stratified.)  My first brew in a bag batch had a 76% efficiency, so I think I just took a bad sample this time (especially given that this was a lower gravity beer).

I've added some photos this time to show how I executed a brew in a bag session in the kitchen of my condo.

This is my brew kettle just after adding my grains to my strike water.  I used the same formula for calculating my strike water as I did with a water cooler mash tun and it worked perfectly.  That is of course with a towel around my kettle for insulation.  

This is a second pot (5 gal.) that I  put my bag of grains into after removing it from the brew kettle for my mash.  I left the bag in here for about ten minutes and stirred up the grains.  I had an over flow last time.  Now I estimate that for a normal gravity beer, I can only have between 2-2.5 gallons in my 5 gallon "dunk sparge" kettle.  

After my "dunk sparge," I removed my grain bag to a large stainless steel mixing bowl where I caught some extra wort dribbling from the grains.  

Given my experience with this second brew in a bag session, I think I will be using this as my primary all-grain brewing method.  Finally, in my last post, I noted that this method produced very cloudy wort. This time, was no different.  I had a lot of break material in the bottom of my kettle after chilling.  But to keep from losing too much wort, I opted to use a hop sack.  I rarely use hop sacks, but I think I will be using them for brew in a bag.  So far, I think this is the best all-grain method I've found for brewing in my small apartment kitchen.  It's also pretty much as fast as knocking out an extract with specialty grains batch.  

Brew in a Bag Experiment

My local home brew shop started carrying large nylon mesh bags big enough for brew in a bag.  I tested it out  on my last brew with 13 lbs of malt and the seam on the bag ruptured in a few spots.  Besides the ruptures, which I've patched with some nylon thread, it was much easier than mashing in my water cooler mash tun.

If you've read my post on doing a full wort boil on a glass top range http://greatermonkey.blogspot.com/2012/04/full-wort-boil-on-glasstop-electric.html, you'll see I use a towel wrapped around my brew kettle to help me get 5.5 gallons of wort from mashing temperature to a boil in 20-25 minutes.  That towel worked great at retaining heat during the brew in a bag mash.  I only lost one degree F on a 1 hour mash.  The wort came out a lot cloudier than with my water cooler mash tun, but the beer still cleared out nicely after fermentation.  With the time I saved by not draining and then washing the mash tun, I think I may prefer mashing with brew in a bag to mashing in my water cooler mash tun.

I'll be testing out brew in a bag again tomorrow with my repaired and reinforced mesh bag.

End of the 2012 Hop Growing Experiment

My experiment on growing hops in the tropics is over and I didn't get any cones.  This year was hot and windy and I had trouble keeping the leaves on the plants from drying out without making the soil too wet.

I just dug up my rhizomes and stuck them in the fridge.  I'll probably give it another shot next year and hope for better weather.